Jesus, it’s been a crummy year in the death department. Dimebag Darrell too? Courtesy of a deranged gun nut?

The incomparable Robert Birnbaum talks with Francisco Goldman. Along the way, they mention Walter Benjamin. Now if you’re like me and you encounter an author you haven’t read three times in print or conversation during the course of a single week, you immediately take pains to add him to your bookpile. Benjamin’s The Arcades Project, as referenced by Goldman, involved years of research and years of transformation and appears to be one of those hefty volumes that almost got away and didn’t quite make it to its inevitable form. (The version which can be found today was recovered Kafka-style from a friend.) Composed of notes, lists, labryinthine references, quotes, and more, all of it taking on some momentous expression of consciousness, one suspects that Vollman got more than a few ideas from him. I’m straddling the fence on whether to get sucked into Benjamin. But he was the guy who came first.

Bad enough that Tom Stoppard was pulled away from the script so that the man who gave us American Pie could write His Dark Materials, but the Times reports that “references to the church are likely to banished from the film” — apparently, with the full support of Pullman, who was paid “a large amount” for the rights. (via Publisher’s Lunch)

• The sexiest litblogger in the City of Angels serves up hot compare and contrast on the Holmes front (Sherlock, that is).
• Jenn-W (yo!) gets press with the Jewish Ledger, talking ’bouts Simsbury (not Rocks or Maxis), autobio elements, and the forthcoming film ‘doption dapplin’ down with In Her Shoes. Dig?
• Emily Auerbach sez that Jane Austen is underappreciated as a writer. Does A-bach gets awayz from the burbs? Because here in these cits, hot young bespectacles cants get enough of Pride and Prejudice; hence, prejudicial to Auntie Jane’s books more so than V-Woolf. Get busy, Ems. You’re out to lunch.
• Dakota Fanning’s the kidlit child star. First Alice, then Charlotte’s Web. An Olsen Twin in the making?
• Mira Nair and Jhumpa Lahiri. BUZZ!
• Tintin’s got an amusing explan about his Fountain o’ Youth. Well, Holmes, pass the Courvosier!